motivation/ advice for the ocean etude

[joeplaysthepiano]

Hello everyone,

Right now I'm practicing the ocean etude.  I can play it smoothly at a little better than half speed right now, so I guess it's going pretty well.  I can, however, see problems arising down the road when I try to get it to full speed.  My practice method right now is using various rhythmical patterns to trick my fingers into helping me play faster and more smoothly. 

I was just wondering if this will be enough to get me to full speed.  I was hoping someone who has played the piece could give me some motivation, talk about their experience with the piece, how long it took, and the methods they used to bring it up to full speed. 

Right now I'm doing exactly what my teacher is telling me, but I don't know if I see the light at the end of the tunnel yet.  I looked at old threads, but nothing was clear about how to bring the piece up to its final speed once it is already solid.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Joe

[joeplaysthepiano]

any thoughts?

[pianowelsh]

YES.  All the rhythms etc etc etc are very good for you and will help with evenness/fluencey BUT dont try to rush the speed.  Keep accuracy your primary goal and precision of movements.  Teachers often forget to mention too that you NEED to keep your fingers very close to the keys all the time (like glue).  Its essential that your finger technique is efficient there so your fingers arent overworking because when you speed it up if its not perfectly in control it will derail.  Be especially carefull for really smooth and perfect changes on the repeated notes I spent a long time practising the change over sections with a metronome and speeding them up gradually in isolation with really precise movements and also a good one is to play block chords up and down keyboard with the metronome so that you are coordinating the large arm muscles to 'move to' the correct places efficiently this will take the tension of 'getting to the key' off your fingers.  PREPARATION is the  key your fingers can only play accurately what they can reach so you need to make sure the arm and shoulder departments are helping them out and not tripping them up.  All the best of  with your etude.

[joeplaysthepiano]

Thanks for the response.  Do you think the method described by Bernhard in the thread below will work well here?  And, how should I apply it to this specific piece?  Thanks.

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2449.msg21217/topicseen.html#msg21217